Theresa Gonzalez of the office of the New York Times College Scholarship Program knows Ayana Morales '06 MD'10, Lily Wu '06 MD'10 and Angelika Garcia '10 well. The three girls, all currently at Brown, won the Times scholarship.
"I just talked to them last week," she said. She reminded the girls to RSVP to an event celebrating the New York Times' new building and expressed her hope to see them there.
The New York Times College Scholarship program, established in 1999, recognizes 20 New York City high school seniors who demonstrate academic excellence and community involvement despite personal hardship. Whether they grew up with absent parents, in a homeless shelter or overcoming language barriers, winners are individuals who excel despite obstacles that often force them to assume the responsibility and maturity of adults.
Recipients receive up to $30,000, a laptop, an internship at the New York Times, help finding paid employment each summer and a mentor to guide them throughout their college years. Funds come from the New York Times Company Foundation, the Starr Foundation and other private contributions.
Though the current Brown students declined to comment, program alum Julissa Mejia '06 said Gonzalez's care for the scholars is the cornerstone of the program. "You don't feel like it's money and a goodbye," she said.
Mejia was born in the Dominican Republic and moved to the Bronx when she was seven. Her neighborhood was "typical New York City," she said, with "lots of blacks, Latinos and Asians."
"Brown was kind of a shock," she said.
Without the scholarship program, Mejia said, she may not have landed at Brown or at her current job at JPMorgan Chase.
"The people who work with the scholarship definitely influenced where I ended up," Mejia said. "They didn't necessarily influence the field I'm in, but they influenced my drive and were always there for support - like a family."
It's this dynamic that makes the New York Times Scholarship Program so unique. Last year, Brown students received upwards of $2.6 million from outside scholarship agencies, according to Director of Financial Aid James Tilton. The new College Cost Reduction and Access Act, which aims to increase national grants for students, should increase the availability of outside aid. But not all of these funds provide their scholarship winners with the surrogate family that comes with winning a New York Times College Scholarship.
"There are so many wonderful kids in New York who have enormous adversity in their lives and who somehow manage to survive in brilliant fashion," program director Soma Golden Behr told the New York Times in 2006. "What we want to do is help give those remarkable young people a helping hand, a boost over the fence."
The program guides winners through college, beginning with an internship at the Times, which most students serve the summer after high school. Mejia worked in public relations at the newspaper.
"They brought us in and took us through the office, introducing us to everyone," she said. "They wanted to make sure we weren't just at the Times twiddling our fingers."
Throughout college, scholars attend a variety of social events, like holiday parties and trips to Broadway shows. The program stays in close contact with winners, checking in at least once a semester, if not more often.
As a result, winners form relationships that play an important role in their lives. Mejia now knows Arthur Gelb, former managing editor of the Times, and says that she wouldn't be nearly as close with her three best friends, who also graduated in 2006, if it weren't for their participation in the scholarship program. The group's specific sponsor through the Times, who lived in Providence, even regularly had them over for dinner.
The scholarship program holds special significance in the lives of winners, and many continue to be involved post-graduation. Mejia now represents her class and serves as a type of social coordinator, "making sure everyone stays in touch and bringing younger and older scholars together."
The hope is that these relationships will provide scholarship winners with opportunities throughout their lives. "I probably couldn't have afforded Brown without the scholarship," Mejia said. "But the relationships are what's important."
